US National Security Advisor John Bolton said on Friday talks between the US military and its Turkish counterparts on YPG/PKK and Syria will continue next week, in the hopes of producing results both countries accept.
Bolton had suggested on Tuesday that protecting Washington’s YPG/PKK allies would be a pre-condition of the US withdrawal troops from Syria, which began earlier on Friday. That drew a rebuke from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who called his comments “a serious mistake.”
“What we’re still pursuing in these military-to-military conversations are assurances and protocols and procedures so that everybody feels comfortable with how this is going to happen. And we’re hoping those discussions, which will continue next week, will produce results that are acceptable on both sides,” he said in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, according to a transcript.
TRT World’s Ahmed Bedier has more.
The US-led coalition against Daesh began the process of withdrawing from Syria on Friday, making good on Trump’s announcement that he had decided to remove 2,000 US troops. Trump’s decision surprised allies that have joined Washington in the battle against Daesh.
The US decision has injected new uncertainties into the eight-year-long Syrian war and a flurry of contacts over how a resulting security vacuum will be filled across a swathe of northern and eastern Syria where the US forces are stationed.
Turkey is set to begin an anti-terror operation against the YPG terrorist organisation that have allied with the United States.
The PKK is considered a terror organisation by the US, EU and Turkey. The YPG is its Syrian wing.
In the PKK’s 30-year campaign of terror against Turkey, some 40,000 people, including women and children, have been killed.
Ankara has long criticised the US working with the terrorist YPG/PKK to fight Daesh in Syria, saying that using one terror group to fight another makes no sense.
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